Our Chief Crown Prosecutor and Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutors

Claire Lindley, Chief Crown Prosecutor

Claire Lindley is presently the Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP) of North West Area and is also Chief Crown Prosecutor of Mersey-Cheshire Area. She is a barrister and was called to the Bar in 1986, having studied Law at both Nottingham University (LLB) and London School of Economics (LLM)

She joined the CPS in 1987, and worked for the most part in central and south London. She is a crown advocate.

Claire became the Branch Crown Prosecutor for Greenwich and Woolwich, in South London, and then moved to Preston in 2001.

She then became a Chief Crown Prosecutor in 2005, and has worked in that capacity in Cheshire, Staffordshire and Cumbria.

Claire took up the post as Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor in Mersey-Cheshire in April 2011 and has recently been appointed as Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Area.

Ian Rushton, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor

Ian has worked for the Crown Prosecution Service since it began in April 1986, having been in private practice in Manchester prior to joining the former Prosecuting Solicitor's Department with Greater Manchester Police.

A Senior Crown Prosecutor in the City of Manchester until January 1993, Ian was then promoted to Assistant Branch Crown Prosecutor for Sheffield in South Yorkshire. He progressed to Branch Crown Prosecutor, and held similar posts in Preston and East Lancashire before moving to Cheshire in November 2005 as the Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP).He was appointed to the post of CCP for Lancashire in March 2010 and in April 2011 became one of the two Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutors with Chris Long. In April 2014 he became Acting Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West.

Ian has been heavily involved in the recruitment of legal trainees and with the development and delivery of the CPS Proactive Prosecutor courses, a key element of all Crown Prosecutors' training. He has a national responsibility for Violence Against Women issues.

Ian was educated at The Manchester Grammar School and is a graduate in Law from the University of Nottingham.

Chris Long, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor

Chris Long is a Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor in the North West Area. His responsibilities across the North West include leading the provision of advice and charging decisions to the police across the region. Chris is also coordinating work with partners across the Criminal Justice System to transform the current paper-based system into one that is fully digital. He has operational responsibility for the counties of Cumbria and Lancashire.

Chris started his career as a lawyer in a general law firm in Kirklees and joined the CPS in West Yorkshire in 2002. He became a District Crown Prosecutor in 2005, responsible for the North East Leeds area, and in the same year he was awarded the Young Achiever of the year in the Yorkshire Lawyer awards.

Chris moved to South Yorkshire in 2007 when he was promoted to Senior District Crown Prosecutor with responsibility for the Magistrates' Courts unit. He also led on some key projects including streamlined process, the community prosecutor approach and the optimum business model (a project to reorganise how the CPS manages its Magistrates' Court work).

Chris was appointed to the post of Chief Crown Prosecutor for Cumbria in December 2009, and became one of two Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutors in the larger North West Area in April 2011.